F6F-3 Hellcat, Lt.Stambook, VF-27 auf CVL-23 Princeton, Oct.44

[PetrOs]

And yet another plane from me

This time its a Eduard F6F-3 Hellcat. I used the kit's decals to show an attractive VF-27 paint scheme with the bloody mouth and eyes, as flown by Lt.Stambook (11 kills, 10 as for Oct. 44). At this point Princeton operated VF-27 with a mix of 3-color F6F-3 and overall-sea-blue F6F-5s, all with the same nose art, and the VT-27 TBM-1C Avengers. The nose art was designed by a group of young pilots (including Stambook), and painted by Robert Burnell, also a pilot. Unluckily most of the aircraft were lost when on the 24 October 44 a lone Judy dive bomber put a bomb on a flight deck, causing large fires and later a magasine explosion. Only one F6F-5 survived, as it made an emergency landing on another carrier an hour earlier.

Later this model will be put in a dio with VT-27 Avenger, on the Eduard base plate shown.

The kit is fantastic, and except making the wheels wider not a single bit of putty was necessary.

The antenna wires are 0.2mm hard steel rod.

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The next one on the table is Italeri's Avenger and Alanger's Yak-9DD.

[Wolfpack]

Nice build Petr0s, but a touch OTT with the weathering. Princeton and VF27 only had one cruise before the Princeton was sunk and VF27 went aboard another carrier and had their catsmouth markings painted out by order.

W

[turnerdad]

Got this one to build too, that looks lovely. Those birds got dirty very quickly in those harsh operating conditions so I personally think your weathering is spot on (anyway who wants a hanger Queen in their collection).

Edited April 23, 2008 by turnerdad

[PetrOs]

Nice build Petr0s, but a touch OTT with the weathering. Princeton and VF27 only had one cruise before the Princeton was sunk and VF27 went aboard another carrier and had their catsmouth markings painted out by order.

W

Thanks

What is OTT?

Well, I went for heavier weathering, as the VF-27 went aboard the Princeton somewhere between March and June 1944 (according to my airgroup to carrier assignment list). This aircraft was with the group from the very beginning, so had quite a bit of seatime bleaching and weathering. And, why only one cruise? Shakedown, Marianas, Leyte... The catsmouth was still on the most aircraft when the bomb hit, as visible in the most deck parked hellcats during the fire fighting (not sure if the 17 was on deck, only 2-3 numbers are readable in the photo). And painting over... well, all crews were rescued, but all but one aircraft went down, according to what I know. So they went on another carrier but with freshly painted aircraft. Whether they painted the catsmouth on their new ones is unknown to me.

[turnerdad]

OTT means "over the top".

[Peter Marshall]

Looks fine to me - very nice

My Hellcat is queued behind my Eduard FW190-A8, which is progressing slowly , but it is next.

[Tedfellows]

Lovely Hellcat Petros!

[Mark]

Beautifully done Petr0s. As for OTT weathering? Nah, spot on mate!!!! I like it!

[Alan P]

Agree with the other weathering fans - one cruise during typhoon season would make any paint job look ropey.

I think it's a great effort, well done.

[Scooby]

Very nice, I like the weathering but the belly should be white. Dirty white that is.

I understood some of the aircraft were in the air at the time of the attack and were recoverd aboard another carrier. So more survived than you may think. And they did re-deloy with all blue Hellats with the cat-mouth painted on them.

[Muller]

Hey Petr0s, you can never have enough weathering!

That is a lovely build. The paintjob is great.

She's a big bird isn't she?!

[darson]

Great job PetrOs and I really like the weathering, I hope mine turns out as well as yours.

Cheers

[Modelling Mushi]

Nice builds PetrOs. WRT weathering it's all a bit speculative anyway . Each bird weathers differently, paint batches are different in how they react - even which bird cops the sea spray during heavy weather, or which one has been recently overhauled can make a big difference . Go figure. Looking forward to your next posts.

[Modelling Mushi]

Nice builds PetrOs. WRT weathering it's all a bit speculative anyway . Each bird weathers differently, paint batches are different in how they react - even which bird cops the sea spray during heavy weather, or which one has been recently overhauled can make a big difference . Go figure. Looking forward to your next posts.

[Diesel Gypsy]

Looks good to me.

Nice build sir, well done.

DD

[kolja]

Looks good to me too.

As far as weathering goes, granted today's planes and today's cruises are different beasts from 'back when,' but having done two cruises myself I'd tell you that our planes looked like HELL after only a few months at sea. For whatever that's worth...